Altap Salamander

Keep Remote Directory up to Date

Keep remote directory up to date is a unique feature of WinSCP. With it you may let WinSCP watch
for changes in a local directory and have it automatically reflect the changes on the selected remote directory.

Using it, you can, with some limitations, work with local files using your favourite tools and the effect
would be as if you were working with remote files directly. In other words, the feature partially replaces
commercial remote directory drive mapping tools.

Find the function in WinSCP plugin menu. The
Options dialog will appear.

Note that you will be warned if number of subdirectories to be watched exceeds 500. Watching for changes in large number
of directories can significantly degrade the performance of your computer.

How It Works

Once you start the function, WinSCP will register to receive notification whenever something changes in the
selected local directory (and optionally in all its subdirectories). Once you make a change, for example when you
save file in your favourite editor, WinSCP will receive notification about the change in the respective
directory. Then it will perform synchronization of the local directory
with the corresponding remote directory. Thus your change will be automatically reflected on the remote side.

WinSCP can even (optionally) delete remote files when you delete local files.

WinSCP must know the correct timestamps of remote files, to avoid losing data.

WinSCP will only detect that something has changed in the directory; it won't know what the
specific change was. So it must perform a full synchronization of that directory. As a result it may upload
not only the file changed just at the moment but any file that is out of sync. In other words, you should
start the Keep remote directory up to date function only when the selected local and remote directories
are already completely (or almost completely) synchronized. You can
make WinSCP do this automatically for you, by checking option
Synchronize on start.

When you rename a file or directory, WinSCP will see it as removal of one file and addition of another and
it will reflect the change on remote directory as such. So it is not recommended to use the function to
"rename" large files and directories. You should do this manually.